During the second Republican debate that took place on September 16th, presidential candidate Carly Fiorina claimed that 307,000 veterans “have died waiting for health care”. Besides Fiorina, many others, such as CNN have reported the same number. Viewers of the debate were shocked at the claim and doubted the accuracy of Fiorina’s statement. In particular, readers of The Washington Post asked the newspaper to write about the claim in their Fact-Checker article.
Writer Michelle Ye Hee Lee found that Fiorina’s claim is “rooted in misconstrued reports by reputable news outlets”. When the VA was investigated it was found that with over 22 million records, the system is not efficient in processing health care enrollments. The statistic in Fiorina’s claim comes from the fact that many of the records in the VA system (about 867,000) have a “pending” status, meaning that someone had applied for enrollment, but the VA had not yet found them eligible for benefits. Of the records in pending about 307,000 were for people “reported as deceased”.
While The Washington Post does not dispute this statistic, it claims that it is not a reliable representation of the data. This is because even though the VA began the enrollment process in 1998, pre-1998 records were put in the system. The system is further complicated because automatic data feeds enter every person who has had an encounter with the VA. Many of these people have never requested health care (such as those looking for home loans). However, VA officials could not identify the exact amount of reports dealing with health care issues.
This being said, The Washington Post deemed Fiorina as unreliable because the idea of 307,000 deceased veterans that applied for health care is the “absolute worst-case scenario”.
Yet, when The Washington Post article is analyzed, it is not without its own faults. It deems the statistic unreliable but only assumes this fact, nor does it offer a more reliable or accurate statistic. While I agree that Fiorina’s statement was exaggerated I also believe the fact that it doesn’t appear that anyone can get a better statistic on the matter is more concerning than a politician using a wrong statistic to make a point.
The Washington Post points out that “the VA system’s weaknesses limit us in the public from knowing exactly what the pending records mean and what they reflect about veterans’ access to health care”. There has been backlash against Fiorina from proponents of the VA healthcare system who claim that the VA has been one of the best institutions for administrating healthcare. Many viewers and commenters have used anecdotal references instead of actual statistics to prove their claims. However, without access to real, proven information the accessibility of healthcare for veterans cannot truly be analyzed.
Instead of being outraged at Fiorina’s use of the statistic, the public instead should be outraged that as of now we don’t know the whole truth nor are we able to find out by any means because it appears as though nobody knows, not even the VA. Once we know the number of veterans in The United States of America who do not have access to proper health care we can then ask ourselves: When does the moral obligation to help people apply? Do we only care when 300,000 veterans die waiting for health care? 3,000? Are we not supposed to care or want to change the system if only 3 people die waiting for access to health care? Whether or not Fiorina’s statement is statistically correct there should be a push to find out the whole truth behind her statement in order to properly address the issue.
Sociology of Healthcare 